“Local knowledge has been pretty important here because I live in the Adelaide Hills and I spend a lot of time doing recce, although I haven’t done as much as in the past because of work commitments. But yes, local knowledge definitely helps,” Possingham said.

“Things went really well for the first day or so. The car felt amazing, certainly a lot better than it was last year,” Possingham said.

“But then we suffered a front diff problem and had to replace that on Friday night. After that the car didn’t really turn in as well as it had before, but at the same time the stage times were okay and we haven’t needed to do much more than just stay on the road because we’d got most of our lead on the first couple of days.

“We’ve haven’t had to push that hard at all, but it’s been quite enjoyable. I normally put a big safety margin into my driving anyway, and having a big lead meant that we didn’t have to take any risks.

“It’s been really enjoyable and to see the crowds lining the stages has been great fun.”